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    • Criticality of Change Management skills

    When we hear stories in the professional world about organisations changing the way they function, it brings me back to the criticality of change management skills in the workplace.

    The announcement a few years ago from Rolls Royce of the loss of 4000 predominantly management jobs is another example of why skills to cope with change are a survival mechanism. The criticality of change management skills is real, and we need to ensure we have what it takes.

    The Criticality of Change Management Skills Today

    I have been working in Change Management for a very long time now, and through the years, I have come to understand the development within the industry. I spend a lot of my time communicating the criticality of change management skills today and why your organisation should be investing.

    Here’s why change management is so vital and should be a priority;

    Adapting Your Organisation for Success – There are always shifts in the market and the world around us. The advancement in technologies, AI and information, will mean that processes within your organisation could be adapted or streamlined to make you more successful. Having the skills to recognise and implement these adaptations could be the difference between sinking or swimming.

    Driving Change Internally – Change management skills include the way you internally communicate with your team and the wider organisation. This gives us a way to drive change internally, which is crucial for success.

    Using Your Learned Skills for Minimal Disruption During the Process – Once you have a good amount of skills within change management, you can use these to ensure there is minimal disruption during the change process.

    Maximise Team Engagement and Minimise Resistance to Change – Communication is key! Keeping your team engaged and handling resistance to change are all skills that you will learn during one of my change management courses. These are crucial to successful change implementation.

    Roadmap to the Desired Outcome of your Organisation – Change management skills give you a methodical way to plan your change roadmap and determine your outcome. Again, this is one of the key drivers for success – knowing where you want to end up!

    Enhance the Effect of Your Leadership – Skills that you will learn when studying change management will ensure you are able to lead change for you and your team. This is critical for successful change implementation.

    Teaching and Building Resilience to Change – Within your team, you also need to ensure you are teaching change skills and building a resilience to change. Without these skills, the change will not result in a successful outcome.

    Learning from Previous Cases

    In the Rolls Royce case, there were two groups of people involved who had to call upon their change management skills: those losing their jobs and those left behind. For those losing their jobs, an ability to cope with the upheaval of finding a new role, possibly in a different industry, probably in a different city, is a necessity. I was recently with a gentleman who was serving out his 3-month redundancy period with his employer of the last 20 years. Working with him and explaining how the brain fights to keep things the same and the likely emotions he will experience as he transitions to a new lifestyle gave him back some of his power. By understanding that what he was experiencing is part of a process enabled him to see what is likely to happen next so he could prepare for it.

    Equally, those who remain at Rolls Royce need skills in leading themselves and others through change. Their CEO, Warren East, has expressed frustration at the slow pace of change within Rolls Royce, so clearly, the ability to innovate and shorten the time between having an idea and getting it into practice are going to be key to future success.

    The Lifecycle of Change

    Knowledge of a simple lifecycle of change (Awareness, Participation, Adoption, for example) along with the techniques to generate support for the change, checklists of activities to move the change from concept to practical reality and an appreciation of who needs to do what and when are essential business skills. Whatever your job title, the ability to manage change is a key competence and is implicitly expected, even if no one has explicitly stated that this is part of your role. We all manage change every day, so take the time to step back and consider the changes you have led and how you can improve the next time you are part of a team that needs to make improvements.

    Rolls Royce is not alone. This story can be written about any industry in any country right now. In my own work, I am developing the capability for change in education, public services, utilities and retail.

     Understanding Change with Agile Change Management

    Make no mistake, understanding change is a personal and a career survival mechanism.

    If you want my help to build these skills for yourself or your team, get in touch or join my next Change Management Practitioner course with the added bonus that you not only learn change skills but you get a qualification for your CV as well. For a plethora of resources, why not join my ChangeabilityPro®️ platform? Sign Up today.